An anonymous reader writes: In February, when the FCC rolled out its net neutrality rules, it also voted to override state laws that let Texas and North Carolina block ISPs created by local governments and public utilities. These laws frequently leave citizens facing a monopoly or duopoly with no recourse, so the FCC abolished them. Now, North Carolina has sued the FCC to get them back. North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper claims, "the FCC unlawfully inserted itself between the State and the State’s political subdivisions." He adds that the new rule is "arbitrary, capricious, and an abuse of discretion within the meaning of the Administrative Procedure Act; and is otherwise contrary to law."

I worked for a software house of 10 people. We wore what the hell we wanted unless we were facing clients, then we wore what the hell the client needed to see in order to believe we were professionals. Once the client "knew" us, we wore what the hell we wanted. We grew, we merged with a company of equivalent size to make about 200 people. We kept our "dress code". The merged company exploded in size, technology group represented less than 10% of the 10,000 staff globally a big group of that 10% wore some company branded hooey we stayed with what the hell we wanted. Someone tried to introduce the idea that we should conform to a uniform policy.

I find the requirement for "uniforms" for non customer facing resources to be offensive. I have enough trouble with the idea of "uniforms" for people that do face customers. What I understand is that some customers come at things with a view to what a professional looks like and in order to make the connection you have to conform until you can prove that your suit isnot what makes you worth paying to do your job.

I probably would have walked from my job over this issue because it really sits at the heart of my relationship with my employer. My expertise, commitment and professionalism are measured in what I do and not the clothes I wear. If my boss thinks otherwise then he or she is a tool. If I cannot persuade them or their boss of this issue then the company is not worth working for. Period.

We all have to make compromises and by the time this issue came up for me I was senior enought that I could have pulled weight and just ignored it but I was holding out for all the guys in our group who didn't have that ability. I cannot overstate how much this kind of thing shits me. I don't know about your Helldesk folk but the ones I work with fall into two categories, the good who treat most problems like puzzles and do what has to be done to solve them, for them I would go into bat to get 'em the right to wear what the hell they like. The others, you know the kind I mean, I wouldn't piss on if they were on fire and I have bollocked them and their managers over their work, I would be happy if their uniform was a grey smock and a dunces hat, just so we know what to expect...

If you cannot leave your job then suck it up and wait until you can because this kind of thing is a baaaad deal.

Didn't the last decade contain Google's entire rise to dominance? The "start page to the internet" and all that? How exactly does Apple's crappy e-store compare with that achievement, exactly?
One has to think that the results of the poll are about flash rather than true impact.

One interesting trend I'm seeing here (as people flock to fight "their" revolution on the Iran story a couple of posts below), is that while the vocal minority that is the Internet connected America keeps worrying about other countries affairs, the government does what it is supposed to do: legislate on internal matters.

It is more positive for USA and the world when their government does its homework and clean up their house, much better than when they try to fix the world and accomplish neither the former nor the latter.

Posted
by
timothy
on Friday April 17, 2009 @08:21AM
from the so-it's-not-a-traditional-honeymoon-suite dept.

ApharmdB writes "Beneath a glacier in Antarctica, scientists have discovered a community of microbes growing in frigid pools of salty water. It's a particularly tough environment, with no light, no oxygen, and extremely cold temperatures. But the microbes appear to live — and thrive — off a combination of iron and sulfur, according to a new study. The result of that strange metabolism is a brilliant red streak of cascading ice called Blood Falls."

Posted
by
timothy
on Friday April 17, 2009 @12:39AM
from the may-not-is-more-like-it dept.

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit has overturned a lower court order permitting webcast of an oral argument in an RIAA case, SONY BMG Music Entertainment v. Tenenbaum, in Boston. As one commentator put it, the decision gives the RIAA permission to 'cower behind the same legal system they're using to pillory innocent people.' Ironically, the appeals court's own hearing had been webcast, via an mp3 file. The court admitted that this was not an appropriate case for a 'prerogative writ' of 'mandamus,' but claimed to have authority to issue a writ of 'advisory mandamus.' The opinion came as a bit of a surprise to me because the judges appeared, during the oral argument, to have a handle on the issues. The decision gave me no such impression. From where I sit, the decision was wrong in a number of respects, among them: (a) it contradicted the plain wording of the district court rule, (b) it ignored the First Amendment implications, and (c) there is no such thing as 'advisory' mandamus or 'advisory' anything — our federal courts are specifically precluded from giving advisory opinions."

Posted
by
ScuttleMonkey
on Monday October 06, 2008 @01:51PM
from the journey-to-the-bottom-of-the-sea dept.

coondoggie writes to tell us that DARPA seems to still be having fun with their funding and continues to aim for the "far out." The latest program, a submersible airplane, seems to have been pulled directly from science fiction. Hopefully this voyage to the bottom of the sea is of the non-permanent variety. "According to DARPA: 'The difficulty with developing such a craft come from the diametrically opposed requirements that exist for an airplane and a submarine. While the primary goal for airplane designers is to try and minimize weight, a submarine must be extremely heavy in order to submerge underwater. In addition, the flow conditions and the systems designed to control a submarine and an airplane are radically different, due to the order of magnitude difference in the densities of air and water.'"